Captain’s Log: The Enterprise is attending a trade agreement conference on Betazed, and hosting an end-of-conference shindig in Ten-Forward, complete with Algolian ceremonial rhythms. The Ferengi were invited for the first time, and one of their delegation, Nibor, loses to Riker at three-dimensional chess. Meanwhile, Tog, the DaiMon of the Ferengi ship, has the hots for Lwaxana Troi. Against the advice of his aide Dr. Farek, Tog approaches Lwaxana, who rips into him, making it clear that a) she’s not for sale and b) if she was for sale, she still wouldn’t allow herself to become his property. Her tirade—which gets the attention of everyone in Ten-Forward, most notably Troi, who looks very much like she wants to throw up—only makes Tog more exhilarated.

Tog returns to his ship, and Troi and Lwaxana get into a nasty argument. Lwaxana believes that her daughter won’t be happy until she starts a family, as that was what made her happy (up until now, anyhow…).

The Enterprise is going on a mapping expedition in a stellar nursery not far from Betazed—though they’ll be back in time to deliver Wes for his oral entrance exam for StarfleetAcademy (he’s already passed his written). They leave Riker and Troi behind, taking shore leave on Betazed. Their romantic interlude is interrupted by Lwaxana and Mr. Homn, who set up a picnic, and Lwaxana tries a little too hard to put Riker and Troi together.

Tog beams into the picnic with flowers for Lwaxana. She tosses them aside and rejects him again; his response is to beam himself, Lwaxana, Riker, and Troi to his ship, with the three of them winding up unconscious in a cell. When they wake up, Farek beams Troi and Lwaxana to a wardroom, but without their clothes. (“Females do not deserve the honor of clothing.”) Farek remains disgusted by the Betazoid women, but Tog is still smitten with Lwaxana.

Not wanting to risk her daughter’s life, Lwaxana plays along with Tog, pretending to return his interest. Troi is returned to the cell with Riker. While Tog and Lwaxana play house, Riker tricks Nibor into letting him out of the cell for a 3D chess rematch, followed by a quick knuckle sandwich for Nibor. However, they can’t communicate with the Enterprise without Tog’s access code. Lwaxana tries to get Tog to reveal it so she can give it to Troi telepathically. Just as Tog is about to do so, Farek walks in. He insists that Tog give Lwaxana over to him for study or he will report Tog’s breach.

Reluctantly, Tog agrees, and Farek puts Lwaxana in a machine that will study her brain to determine how her telepathy works, so perhaps Farek can duplicate it. This tortures Lwaxana, and by extension Troi as well. Without the access code, Riker manages to hide a message within subspace static, in the hopes that the Enterprise will find them.

Back on the Enterprise, they’re scanning Ferengi subspace signals, trying to locate Tog’s ship. Wes is the one who figures out Riker’s “message”—he embedded the Algolian rhythms from the reception within the Ferengi ship’s Cochrane distortion. Wes does so in lieu of boarding the Bradbury, thus missing his oral exams.

Riker and Troi are able to shoot Farek and get Lwaxana out of his torture chamber, but then Tog gets the drop on Riker. Lwaxana then offers to stay with Tog, but only if he lets Riker and Troi go—pointing out that as long as he holds the two of them, Starfleet won’t stop chasing Tog.

Tog agrees, sending Riker and Troi back to the Enterprise. Picard contacts Tog, wanting Lwaxana back. Lwaxana then insists that it’s over between her and Picard and he must get over her. Troi realizes that she’s setting Picard up to try to win her back, so Picard starts throwing the Greatest Hits of Shakespeare’s Sonnets at her. But Lwaxana insists that she’s with Tog now, and he must stop killing her other lovers, that just has to stop. Tog is sufficiently frightened by the possibility of a firefight with the Enterprise that he sends her back with all due haste.

Meanwhile, Wes has missed the oral exam, and therefore has to wait another year to apply to the Academy, since apparently the notion of a makeup exam gets lost over the course of the next four hundred years. Given his service to the Enterprise over the past three years, Picard decides to give him a field promotion to full ensign, allowing him to stride onto the bridge in a red uniform instead of gray pajamas.

Can’t We Just Reverse the Polarity?: Cochrane distortion is generated by warp fields, and is normal background noise in subspace. It’s named after Zefram Cochrane, first established in “Metamorphosis” on the original series as the creator of warp drive (and whom the Enterprise crew will meet in Star Trek: First Contact).

Thank You, Counselor Obvious: As usual for a Lwaxana episode, Troi is reduced to being her mother’s foil. She’s also the subject of a lengthy tirade about settling down and having a family and being happy. Ironically, she might have been more successful if she’d left well enough alone, as Riker and Troi were well on their way to a romantic getaway when she interrupted with her picnic. (Lwaxana at one point says that Deanna is all she has left, a hint at the true reason for her overprotectiveness, to be revealed in “The Dark Page.”)

There is No Honor in Being Pummeled: Worf refers to Lwaxana as “an admirable woman,” a position he will reverse as time goes by. He also looks vaguely nauseated during Picard’s rhapsody in Shakespeare.

The Boy!?: TNG continues its contrivances to keep Wes on board the ship by making Starfleet Academy pretty much impossible to get into. Seriously, they have visual subspace communication—why does the applicant have to be there in person at a particular time? Is there no accounting for sickness or injury or distance or trying to save the life of a crew member?

No Sex, Please, We’re Starfleet: We first learn of oo-mox, the revelation that Ferengi ears are erogenous zones (something Deep Space Nine will make excellent use of). Also Riker and Troi make their first move toward rekindling their long-ago romance, but it gets derailed by the kidnapping.

Picard attempts to convince Tog that he’s in love with Lwaxana, and fails pretty dismally until he hits upon using Shakespeare. He cherrypicks from assorted sonnets (#18, 116, 141, and 147), as well as Othello, and then throws in some Tennyson for good measure (“Tis better to have love and lost, than never to have loved at all”).

I Believe I Said That: “The Sacred Chalice of Rixx is an old clay pot with mold growing inside it.”

Troi taking the piss out of her mother.

Welcome aboard. Besides, of course, the return of Majel Barrett as Lwaxana Troi and Carel Struycken as her valet Mr. Homn, following their debut in “Haven” and return in “Manhunt,” this episode also marks Frank Corsentino’s second appearance as a Ferengi, having played DaiMon Bok in “The Battle.” Barrett and Struycken will next appear in the fourth season’s “Half a Life”; Corsentino will appear again as a third Ferengi, Gegis, in Voyager‘s “Inside Man.” (Ironically, when Bok returns in “Bloodlines” in TNG‘s seventh season, he’s played by Lee Arenberg, as Corsentino wasn’t available.)

This episode marks the Trek debut of Ethan Phillips, who would go on to play Neelix on Voyager. (In addition, he’s a holographic maître d’ in First Contact and another Ferengi, Ulis, on Enterprise‘s “Acquisitions.”)

Also in this episode are Rudolph Willrich, who makes no impression whatsoever as a Betazoid official, and Peter Slutsker, who’s fairly amusing as the hard-luck Ferengi Nibor.

Trivial Matters: Riker makes a brief mention of Lwaxana’s pursuit of a husband from her last appearance in “Manhunt,” but Lwaxana brushes it off, saying she’s more concerned with her daughter’s happiness. However, that pursuit will resume in several of her subsequent appearances whether by accident (“Half a Life”) or design (“Cost of Living,” Deep Space Nine‘s “The Muse”).

The scenes on Betazed, which we see for the first time, were filmed at the Huntington Library Botanical Gardens in Pasadena, the same location where the planet scenes in “Justice” were filmed.

During the filming on this episode that saw his character being promoted, Gene Roddenberry presented Wil Wheaton with his second lieutenant bars from his days in the Army Air Corps. General Colin Powell, then chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, later Secretary of State, was there for the presentation.

Tog’s access codes included the terms “Kei” and “Yuri,” the names of the two main characters in the anime Dirty Pair.

In the “too much information” category, the title is a play on a French term generally used to indicate sex among three people. The episode was co-written by Susan Sackett—who was Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s personal assistant, and with whom he had a long-term affair—and guest starred Roddenberry’s wife. That isn’t at all weird.

Sackett and Roddenberry cowrote a 25th anniversary coffee-table book about Star Trek that was never released due to various legal issues involving use of photographs and such. However, your humble rewatcher received an advance galley of the book to review for Library Journal, for whom he reviewed books at the time. This episode was cited as the best of the Lwaxana Troi episodes, which seemed a little disingenuous coming from the episode’s coauthor. (Of course, the episode’s competition at the time was solely “Haven” and “Manhunt,” so there is that…)

Make it So: “My love is a fever!” It’s kind of amusing to watch this back to back with “Sarek.” In both you have the return of a recurring character played by an actor from the original series; in both we have the Enterprise orbiting an established world that hadn’t been seen on screen on TNG before; in both the climax involves Sir Patrick Stewart being somewhat over the top.

Yet the episodes couldn’t be more different, as there’s almost nothing to redeem “Ménage à Troi.” Tog is a ridiculous character even by Ferengi standards, the plot is contrived and tiresome, and the whole thing is just generally painful to watch.

Having said that, I gotta say that I can watch Stewart histrionically throw Shakespeare at the wall all the live long day. That scene alone almost makes the episode worth watching. But y’know what? DVDs can go to particular scenes, plus we have YouTube. You can just watch that scene and ignore the rest.

There are other saving graces here and there—Ethan Phillips’s Farek is a very good villain, much more menacing than the ineffectual Tog, it’s nice to see Riker and Troi acting like a couple, and Wil Wheaton looks good in red—but ultimately this is one of the low points of an excellent season.